Senators Press Immigration Agency on Surveillance Tech Use

Two Senate Democrats are urging US Immigration and Customs Enforcement to rein in its use of surveillance technologies that they say are “shrouded in secrecy.”

“ICE should immediately shut down its Orwellian data-gathering efforts that indiscriminately collect far too much data on far too many individuals,” Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said in a Sept. 12 letter to ICE Acting Director Tae Johnson.

Their letter cites a recent report from Georgetown University that showed ICE regularly employs facial recognition technology to analyze driver’s license photographs. The agency also purchases information such as utility customer records from data ...